Weird Worldbuilding

Sometimes, it’s the weird little corners of your world that players will latch on to. In a post-apocalypse campaign I ran, the players ran into an old, fully automated factory that made self-heating cans of “Joe,” an artificial coffee-flavored meal substitute. I noted that there were some faded old signs (“Start Your day with a Big Cup of Joe!”), and that there was a trading village down the hill from the factory.

Before the players ever got to the trading village, they had formed dozens of theories about how the Joe Factory got raw materials (from roving “acquisition drones” who had once picked up cargo runs, but has simply adjusted to become automated hunter/gatherers dumping crops and game and ore in the Joe Factory intake hoppers) to how the village used the Joe cans to survive. Drinking it, of course, but also hammering out old cans to make tools, opening a dozen cans in a pot of water to heat and sanitize it, to pouring the thick Joe on thin rocks, letting it dry into a vinyl-like fabric, and making clothes out of it.

It was all much more interesting than what I had planned, so by the time the players got to the village, and I adapted and expanded off their best ideas to create a culture that was part cargo cult, part hipster battle clans (with the Blak, Sprezo, and Mhokah the most powerful factions).

So, sometimes a throwaway line or idea is just a drop of color in the impressionist painting that is an RPG campaign world… and sometimes it’s a jumping-off point for a much more fantastic and interesting element that’s explored in depth.

As a result when I have a weird idea, I often make sure to note it down and roll it around in my head a bit. Maybe nothing comes of it. Maybe I mention it once next time I am running a game off-the-cuff.
But maybe it’ll pay much larger dividends.

So, I told you that story to tell you this one.

In the Starfinder Roleplaying Game, there is a lizardlike race known as the vesk, who have their own empire, and a weapon like an axe with spikes instead of an axe-blade called a “doshko.”

Between the stress and exhaustion of the apst few weeks, and the OTC cocktail I’ve been using to try to sleep at night, an idea popped into my head, unbidden.
A phrase, really.
“Drink Dochcola, the Taste of War. … Or Else!”

Heh.

I like the idea of a soft drink called “Doshcola,” though I presume it’s sold by a megacorporation that has very little to do with the vesk. Some vesk might even see it as an insult, a dishonor to their traditional weapon of war and symbol of their warlike god.

But that could be interesting, too.

So, as a jumping off point, I present the best slogan I came up with for Doshcola.

Doshcola Slogans“Conquer Your Thirst”
“Give Your Lizard Brain a Drink”
“Spiked with Flavor”
“Now in new Plasma Doshcola Falvor!”
“Get a Taste for War”
“Doshcola. Deadly Serious.”
“4 out of 5 inhuman mercenaries prefer the sharp taste of Doshkola, over blood and dirt.”
“Doshcola. Because what else will you drink, beer made with Dwarf Sweat?”
“Now with 72% less Skittermander Tears!”

Speaking of Weird Little Corners

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About okcstephens

Owen K.C. Stephens
Owen Kirker Clifford Stephens is the Starfinder Design Lead for Paizo Publishing, the Freeport and Pathfinder RPG developer for Green Ronin, a developer for Rite Publishing, and the publisher and lead genius of Rogue Genius Games.
Owen has written game material for numerous other companies, including Wizards of the Coast, Kobold Press, White Wolf, Steve Jackson Games and Upper Deck.
He also consults, freelances, and in the off season, sleeps.